Namaste

Namaste: I Bow to You!

Today I am reflecting on life and how our entire universe is connected. I am a huuuuuge astronomy freak and was watching something on the Discovery Channel about the planets in our solar system and couldn't bring myself to do anything but watch in amazement. Did you know that the planet Mercury is actually shrinking and that it's core makes up 60% of it's entire body? This could mean that Mercury was actually a much bigger planet, and that some cosmic collision blasted away it's outer layer! Mercury is so close to the Sun that we don't know a lot about it, because it's hard to send a satellite into it's orbit without it getting drawn into the Sun's gravitational pull. This is so cool...there is so much out there to learn and discover!

I have a point to this rant, I swear. My point is that energy does not disappear and so it is my belief that our bodies are made up of the same energy that created this universe and beyond. We are breathing the same recycled air of our ancestors, and when we burry our loved ones their bodies decompose and become apart of the Earth. I could not exist without you, and you could not exist without me... because we are all connected in some way.

I think this is comforting, because we are never alone and the connection that one can feel with Mother Nature is almost empowering. Maybe we will never walk on Mars {maybe we will} but we are made up of the same atoms and electrons and protons and everything that Mars is made of. In essence, we are not individuals because we all need eachother to exist. My favorite Ben Kweller quote is this: A broken branch I'd be, if you weren't grown to me. Without you, I am not apart of the tree of life but rather a lonely branch {enter Lion King music as appropriate, ha ha}

Namaste is a word that I think of often. It means I Bow to You. I love this idea, because it means that we are able to notice the beauty and compassion that every single person is capable of. This is an idea that I hope to pass on to my children, and I hope they will one day be so full of love for others that they won't be able to help but to give everything they can to relieve a persons suffering. I'm not saying that my children will have to become Buddhists like me, or Christian's like my family, or anything at all. I only want for them to have the capability of loving without condition. Love is what's important, not the label a person puts on their belief system.

Please continue to think compassionatley about my god-brother and his family. I go in for testing tomorrow and I hope that I am able to help him in some way. If I can't donate my kidney, I have hope that some one will come forward who can. He deserves a chance.

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

{Henry Ward Beecher}